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AMA Repsol Su perstock Se ries M ladin (1 ) ha d the lead aver Zemke (98) and Ben Bostrom (155) before an on·track incident broug ht out the red flag and the stoppage of the race . Yates. Then Mladinwent about the task of nibbling into that lead , and the pair was together w hen the final lap start ed. Mladin knew he wou ld need a perfect lap to pull it off. And he did just that , but Bostrom's final go-around was also solid, and that was all she wrote. "This place has been pretty good to me," Bostro m said of Laguna Seca, where he'd also won the first Formula Xtreme race of his career the day prior. "Today was one of the funner days I've had. I really enjoyed the first start - we were in there batt ling a lot. Then Mat [Mladin)sort of took control of the race , and I thought, 'O h, no , here it goes, Mat is taking off.' "We just got lucky that there was a red flag. We got a great start and jumped out there. I tried to put as much time on them as I cou ld, and I had short gap, and I knew they'd be coming after me . He [Mladin) kept me real honest. It's rea lly fun when you're out there racing and you have to for the opening laps with Bostrom inching away in the distance. The red flag had also come out at a bad time with Mladin's GSXRI000 just starting to work perfectly. "ln the first o ne before the red flag, we got to about half distance, and my bike started to feel really good ," Mladin explained . "I started to put a little bit of a gap on everybody. The bike just felt really good at half distance once the load of the fuel went down a litt le bit - the thing started feeling really good . We got the red flag, and the second one we had to take it easy on the clutch because we' re still having clutch problems about six years after they first started. I had to take it easy on the clutch, so I didn't get the best start. I fought hard to get around Miguel [Duhamel), and' got up to Aaron [Yates), and Aaron decided to hold me up for about three laps, so that's good team spirit right there. Bythe time we got past him, Ben [Bostrom ) had about two and a half seconds with about six laps to go, seven laps to go . "I knew it was Duhamel (17) even tually worked his way past Yates (2 ) to finish third behind Ben Bostrom a nd M ladi n. e n Bost rom couldn't even remember what it was like to win a Superbike race . After all, it had been almost three years since he'd tasted victory - July 29, 200 I, at Brands Hatch in England, a round of the World Supe rbike Ch ampionship. As for the AMA Series, Bostrom hadn't won since August of 1999 at Brainerd International Raceway. Although it's difficult to believe, that was the lone AMA Superbike National win of his career. But that was then , and this is now, and Bostrom is a winner once again, the American Honda rider putti ng the past behind him to emerge w ith victory at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. "I couldn't remember what it was like to win a Superbike race," Bostrom admitted after the race. "I saw everybody leaning over the walland cheering me on, and Isaid, 'We can actuallydo this.' And here we are." It was fitting that Laguna Seca was the icebreaker for Bostrom, end ing a year and a half of frustration since he returned to AMA racing with the factory Honda team. With much e xpected of him in his return to AMA racing, Bostrom had pro duced very little. But that changed at B Laguna Seca, the site of three of Bostrom's six career World Superbike victories. His previous victories here put him on the map, the first earning him a Wo rld Superbike factory ride, the second and third allowing him to keep that World Superbike ride. Now Laguna has again proven to be a magic place for the Bostrom, his AMAcareer perhaps rejuvenated by victory here today. What will make this one even more meaningful is that he beat a very tough Mat Mladin to take the win, the four-time series champion hounding Bostrom to the very end and coming up just short at the finish. Bostrom had not only won, but he'd won under pressure and had beaten the man generally known as the toughest man in the series to beat. And he' d done so in a stra ight fight. The race was held in two parts , thanks to a red-flag stoppage that helped virtually everyone but Mladin, the Australian looking to have things under control prior to the incident that brought out the red flag. Bostrom, however, was all business on the restart, and he shot into the lead and put his head down, open ing a gap that was almost two seconds by the time Mladin had passed his teammate Aaron 24 JULY 21,2004 • CYCLE NEWS push hard every lap and you're nervous . I was so tense the last few laps. We will just get up there and try to mix it up with the boys and win one now and again. I'm just glad to be back." Mladin was pleased to have gained some more ground in his championship run, with his closest pursuer Miguel Duhame l finishing third, but he thought he had a shot at winning and was upset that he was stuck behind his teammate Yates 40th Anniversary going to be hard work because Ben has been solid all week , but we put our head down, and Ben made one mistake in turn fIVe, a fairly big mistake. That let us get to the point where we got a sniff. We put our heads down, but on the last lap he was solid. When I came over the start/finish line with a lapto go, Ithought if I got the lap right, and Ben didn't quite get it right, we could be there for tum 10 or tum I I. He got it right, and we got it right, and unfortunately the gap stayed the same. Congratulationsto Ben. It was a great race, and he was solid all week." Duhamel was third , the French Canad ian also thwarted for awhile by Yates, the Georgian making great gains dur ing the red-flag stoppage as he was able to fit tires that worked - the opposite of the ones he had on for the first part of the race (see My Own Race).